An ink jet recording apparatus comprises an ink jet head that ejects ink to an image receiving medium such as a paper and an ink supply device that supplies ink to the ink jet head. An apparatus that includes an ink circulation mechanism in the ink supply device is known as the ink jet recording apparatus.
The ink supply device of the ink jet recording apparatus includes a diaphragm-type first pump that supplies ink introduced from an external ink storage section to the ink jet head. The ink supply device includes a discharge chamber adjacent to a discharge section of the first pump. The ink is supplied from the discharge section of the first pump to the ink jet head via the discharge chamber. The ink jet head is provided with an introduction passage that introduces the ink supplied from the first pump to a nozzle section and a circulation passage that returns ink which is not ejected by the nozzle section to the ink supply device. The ink supply device further includes a second pump that returns the ink returned from the recirculation passage to the discharge chamber.
However, the conventional ink jet recording apparatus described above communicates with the discharge chamber common to the first pump and the second pump for interactively sucking and discharging ink according to operations of a diaphragm. Thus, there is a case in which the first pump and the second pump weaken mutually discharge pressures due to shift of discharge timing of the first pump and discharge timing of the second pump. In this case, pump functions of the first pump and the second pump cannot be used efficiently.